Commentary on Letter of Universal House of Justice dated April 7, 1999

Dear Friends:

Since there has been controversy over the letter of
the Universal House
of Justice to the National Assemblies dated 7 April
1999, and since some
have suggested that I am among those discussed in the
letter, it seemed
appropriate for me to comment. I do so only as one,
inadequate
individual, from a necessarily partial point of view,
but I hope that in
this instance as in others, the "spark of conflicting
opinions" shall
issue in "the truth" as we were promised by `Abdu'l-Baha.

Part I

I shall proceed by attempting a close commentary on
the text. But
first, some general comments must be made about the
context of the
letter and the institution that issued it.

The Universal House of Justice, with its seat in Haifa,
is the
legitimate head of the Baha'i faith. However, it is
different from the
papacy or the caliphate and many other past such bodies
in several ways.
First of all, it was ordained by Bahaullah Himself,
in clear and explicit
language, and as a corollary it is not an arbitrary
or dictatorial institution
but rather one whose very existence as well as specific
authority is based
on a set of scriptural texts. It is a body of laws
and not of men. Second,
its members are elected and change over time. Second,
it
may not abrogate or set aside the revealed text of the
Baha'i scriptures
or their authoritative interpretation by `Abdu'l-Baha'
or Shoghi
Effendi. Third, future Houses of Justice may abrogate
rulings and laws
passed by their predecessors.

Baha'u'llah writes in the Splendors (my reworking of
the official
translation with reference to the Persian text):

"The eighth Ishraq: This passage, now written by
the Pen of Glory, isaccounted as part of the Most Holy Book: The men
of God's House ofJustice have been charged with the affairs of the
[Baha'i] community[millat]. They, in truth, are the Trustees of God
among His servants andthe daysprings of authority in His countries. O
people of God! Thatwhich traineth the world is Justice, for it is upheld
by two pillars,reward and punishment. These two pillars are the
sources of life to theworld.

"Inasmuch as for each day there is a new problem
and for every probleman expedient solution, such affairs should be referred
to the House ofJustice that the members thereof may act according
to the needs andrequirements of the time. They that, for the sake
of God, arise to serveHis Cause, are the recipients of divine inspiration
from the unseenKingdom. It is incumbent upon all to be obedient
unto them.

"All matters of [administrative regulations (umur-i
siyasiyyih)] should be referred to the House of Justice, but acts of worship
(`ibadat) must be observedaccording to that which God hath revealed in His
Book.

"O people of Baha! Ye are the dawning-places of the
love of God and thedaysprings of His loving-kindness. Defile not your
tongues with thecursing and reviling of any soul, and guard your
eyes against that whichis not seemly. Set forth that which ye possess. If
it be favourablyreceived, your end is attained; if not, to protest
is vain. Leave thatsoul to himself and turn unto the Lord, the Protector,
theSelf-Subsisting. Be not the cause of grief, much
less of discord andstrife. The hope is cherished that ye may obtain
true education in theshelter of the tree of His tender mercies and act
in accordance withthat which God desireth. Ye are all the leaves of
one tree and the dropsof one ocean." -Tablets of Baha'u'llah, pp. 128-129.

What does Bahaullah mean by these passages? To understand
them, we must comprehend the context in Islamic legal
thought. The shari`ah or revealed law in Islam
mainly concerns matters of ritual and personal status.
It involves two sorts of duties for adherents, those
that an individual owes to God (`ibadat or ritual
and religious practices) and those that one owes to
one's fellow human beings (mu`amalat). The
latter include penal law, family law, etc. Baha'u'llah's
Most Holy Book also includes
both ritual law (`ibadat) and social laws (mu`amalat),
which he refers to elsewhere
in the supplements to the Most Holy Book. It is the
realm of
shari`ah or revealed law over which the qadis or court
judges presided.
But in Islamic law alongside the shari`ah or revealed
law there was another
realm of law, referred to as as-siya:sah ash-shar`iyyah
or administrative law.

The online Encyclopedia Britannica notes:

"Although Shari'ah doctrine was all-embracing, Islamic
legal practice has
always recognized jurisdictions other than that of
the qadis. Because the
qadis' courts were hidebound by a cumbersome system
of procedure and
evidence, they did not prove a satisfactory organ for
the administration of
justice in all respects, particularly as regards criminal,
land, and
commercial law. Hence, under the broad head of the
sovereign's
administrative power (siyasah), competence in
these spheres was granted to
other courts, known collectively as mazalim
courts, and the jurisdiction of
the qadis was generally confined to private family
and civil law. As the
expression of a religious ideal, Shari'ah doctrine
was always the focal
point of legal activity, but it never formed a complete
or exclusively
authoritative expression of the laws that in practice
governed the lives of
Muslims."

Thus, in Muslim states bureaucrats did make regulations.
This realm of secondary,
administrative law, was more flexible than the shari`ah,
since previous
regulations could always be repealed by later bureaucrats.
Muslim
jurisprudents accepted the validity of as-siyasah
ash-shar`iyyah or
administrative law outside the revealed law.

The issue arose again in the 19th century period of
Muslim reformism (here
again I quote EB):

"From the outset the dominating issue in the Middle
East has been the
question of the juristic basis of reforms--i.e., granted
their social
desirability, their justification in terms of Islamic
jurisprudential
theory, so that the reforms appear as a new, but legitimate,
version of the
Shari'ah. In the early stages of the reform movement,
the doctrine of
taqlid (unquestioning acceptance) was still formally
observed and the
juristic basis of reform lay in the doctrine of siyasah,
or "government,"
which allows the political authority (who, of course,
has no legislative
power in the real sense of the term) to make administrative
regulations . .
."

So far we have been discussing this issue in a Sunni
context, where
administrative law was the province of the
state, since there was no other locus of authority
in Sunnism after the end
of the caliphate. But Baha'u'llah was from a Shi`ite
background, and also
knew all about 19th century European institutions.
He
expected a continued source of religious authority
like the Imams, or
perhaps like the papacy. Therefore, he probably took
the idea of as-siyasah
ash-shar`iyyah or administrative law as a reform tool
over from the 19th
century reformers, but he placed responsibility for
it not with the civil
state (whose separate existence and legitimacy he acknowledged)
but with
the House of Justice he had created.
Note that the Universal House of Justice is empowered
only in matters of
leadership or secondary administrative legislation.
It may not abrogate the explicit
text of Baha'u'llah (referred to as matters of 'worship').
Note that it
is charged with making new laws that address new issues
that arise.

`Abdu'l-Baha says of this body in his Will and Testament,
pp. 19-20
that:

"By this House is meant that Universal House of Justice
which is to be
elected from all countries, that is from those parts
in the East and
West where the loved ones are to be found, after the
manner of the
customary elections in Western countries such as those
of England. It is
incumbent upon these members (of the Universal House
of Justice) to
gather in a certain place and deliberate upon all problems
which have
caused difference, questions that are obscure and matters
that are not
expressly recorded in the Book. Whatsoever they decide
has the same
effect as the Text itself. Inasmuch as the House of
Justice hath power
to enact laws that are not expressly recorded in the
Book and bear upon
daily transactions, so also it hath power to repeal
the same. Thus for
example, the House of Justice enacteth today a certain
law and enforceth
it, and a hundred years hence, circumstances having
profoundly changed
and the conditions having altered, another House of
Justice will then
have power, according to the exigencies of the time,
to alter that law.
This it can do because these laws form no part of the
divine explicit
Text. The House of Justice is both the initiator and
the abrogator of
its own laws . . ."

It should by now be clear that the Universal House of
Justice's sphere
of authority is solely that of legislating Baha'i law
and matters of leadership or administration.
Neither
Baha'u'llah nor any other Baha'i holy figure bestowed
upon the House of
Justice the authority to exercise authoritative Interpretation
of the
Baha'i texts. It is simply not an interpretive body.
Moreover, no
individual House of Justice (since they are elected
every 5 years we are in
the eighth session) can permanently bind or constrain
its successors
by making a law not found in the Baha'i texts and attempting
to make it
permanent.

Nor is the Universal House of Justice to interfere in
the free
expression of individual conscience:

"Palo Alto, California, 9 October 1912: Before
Abdul-Bahá left PaloAlto, a group again had the honor of gathering in
the most holy court.Among his blessed utterances was an explanation of
religious conflicts,especially those of the Christians. `Some said Christ
was God, and somesaid he was the Word, while others called him a prophet.
Because ofthese differences, conflicts arose among them, such
that in thecommunity there was enmity instead of spirituality,
and estrangementrather than unity. But Bahaullah has closed the
door on suchdifferences. By arranging for interpretation to be
carried out by anauthoritative Interpreter of the Book, by establishing
the UniversalHouse of Justice--or in other words the Parliament
of the [Bahai]community--and by commanding that there
be no interference in beliefs orconscience, He blocked such breaches
from occurring. He even said thatif two persons discussing some matter develop a dispute,
such that itleads to a polarization, both are wrong and discredited.'
- In Mahmud
Zarqani, Kitab-i Bada'i` al-Athar, 2 vols. (Hofheim-Langenhain:
Baha'm-Verlag, 1982), 1:294.

Unlike past ecclesiastic institutions, the Baha'i houses
of justice,
whether international, national or local, are according
to `Abdu'l-Baha
not to attempt to interfere with the expression of individual
conscience.

`Abdu'l-Baha also said, in a talk given in 7 April 1913
in Budapest

"Liberty is of three sorts. One is the divine freedom,
thatis confined to the essence of the Creator. He is
autonomous andabsolute. No one can compel Him with regard to anything
at all. Anotherform of liberty is that of the Europeans, which holds
that human beingsmay do as they please on the condition that they
not harm one another.This is the liberty of nature, and its highest degree
is found in theanimal world. This is the estate of the animal. Look
at these birds, inwhat liberty they live. Whatever human beings might
do, they can neverbe as free as animals. Rather, order stands in the
way of freedom. Asfor the third sort of liberty, it is under the divine
laws andordinances. This is the liberty of the human world,
which severs thehearts relationship with all things. It soothes
all hardships andsorrow. The more the consciences of human beings
progress, the more freetheir hearts become, and the more glad their spirits
become. In the religion of God there is freedom of
thought, for no one can rule overthe [individuals] conscience save God. But [freedom
of thought] existsonly to the extent that it is not expressed in terms
that depart frompoliteness. In the religion of God there is no freedom
of deeds. No onecan transgress the divine law, even if in so doing
he harms no one. Forby the divine law is intended the training of oneself
and others. For toGod, harming oneself or harming others are the same,
and both arereprehensible. In hearts there must be the fear of
God, and human beingsmust not commit blameworthy deeds. Therefore, the
freedom of deeds thatexists in civil law does not exist in religion. As
for freedom ofthought, it must not transgress the bounds of politeness.
And deeds arealso linked to fear of God and the divine good-pleasure.
- In
Abdul-Hamid Ishraq-Khavari, ed., Ma'idih-yi Asmani,
9 vols. (Tehran:
Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1973) 5:17-18.

Now, if `Abdu'l-Baha had been speaking of only privately
held beliefs
when he mentioned "conscience," it would not have been
necessary for him
to insist that conscience be expressed politely. He
clearly was
pointing to the inadmissibility of Baha'i houses of
justice interfering
with the verbal expression of individual conscience
in the Baha'i
faith. For more on human rights in the Baha'i faith
see my "The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Baha'i
Scriptures."
Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Studies,
vol. 3, no. 2
(April, 1999) at: http://h-net2.msu.edu/~bahai/bhpapers/vol3/rights.htm

In Baha'i Administration, pp. 63-64, Shoghi Effendi
wrote:

"Let us also remember that at the very root of the
Cause lies theprinciple of the undoubted right of the individual
to self-expression,his freedom to declare his conscience and set forth
his views. Ifcertain instructions of the Master are today particularly
emphasized andscrupulously adhered to, let us be sure that they
are but provisionalmeasures designed to guard and protect the Cause
in its present state ofinfancy and growth until the day when this tender
and precious plantshall have sufficiently grown to be able to withstand
the unwisdom ofits friends and the attacks of its enemies. Let us
also bear in mindthat the keynote of the Cause of God is not dictatorial
authority buthumble fellowship, not arbitrary power, but the spirit
of frank andloving consultation."

Since the Universal House of Justice in its letter of
May, 1995,
recognized the validity of email discussions and exempted
them from
literature Review, this principle of the Guardian is
now fully
applicable to them.

Let us return to the difference between interpretation
and
legislation. Shoghi Effendi writes in *World Order
of Baha'u'llah*, pp.
149-150:

"From these statements it is made indubitably clear
and evident that theGuardian of the Faith has been made the Interpreter
of the Word and thatthe Universal House of Justice has been invested
with the function oflegislating on matters not expressly revealed in
the teachings. Theinterpretation of the Guardian, functioning within
his own sphere, is asauthoritative and binding as the enactments of the
International Houseof Justice, whose exclusive right and prerogative
is to pronounce uponand deliver the final judgment on such laws and ordinances
asBaha'u'llah has not expressly revealed. Neither
can, nor will ever,infringe upon the sacred and prescribed domain of
the other. "

This quotation reinforces what `Abdu'l-Baha said above,
that the
Universal House of Justice is solely a legislating body
and has no
authority to Interpret, and is not to stray into interpretation.

But what would in practical terms prevent such an outcome,
i.e., the
departure of the Universal House of Justice into the
realm of
Interpretation? It is the presence on that body of a
living Guardian.

Shoghi Effendi also wrote in the *World Order of Baha'u'llah*,
p. 148:

"Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship
the World Order ofBaha'u'llah would be mutilated and permanently deprived
of thathereditary principle which, as Abdul-Bahá has
written, has beeninvariably upheld by the Law of God. "In all the
Divine Dispensations,"He states, in a Tablet addressed to a follower of
the Faith in Persia,"the eldest son hath been given extraordinary distinctions.
Even thestation of prophethood hath been his birthright."
Without such aninstitution the integrity of the Faith would be imperiled,
and thestability of the entire fabric would be gravely endangered.
Its prestigewould suffer, the means required to enable it to
take a long, anuninterrupted view over a series of generations would
be completelylacking, and the necessary guidance to define the
sphere of thelegislative action of its elected representatives
would be totallywithdrawn."

Note that Shoghi Effendi was very concerned to delineate
the proper
sphere of authority of the Universal House of Justice,
which is wholly
legislative in nature and has nothing to do with Interpretation.
And
note that he clearly felt that it is the living Guardian
who had the
authority and ability to keep the Universal House of
Justice from
straying into Interpretation from legislation.

Now, in 1957, the Baha'i world was visited with a catastrophe,
since
henceforth there was not and could not be a living Guardian.
The
Universal House of Justice that was elected in 1963,
while legitimate,
found itself precisely in the
position anticipated by the Guardian in
the above passage. It was obliged
to function without the guidance of
a living Guardian. Some
have piously hoped that the
body of interpretation left by the first and only Guardian
could
substitute for the presence of a living Guardian, but
clearly this is
not the case. It is in the give and take of consultation
in the
chambers of the House of Justice that a living Guardian
would make his
interventions, guiding members away from areas that
are not in that
body's purview and ensuring that it retains the ability
to take a long view.

But all is by no means lost. The Quran promised humankind
that God would
not impose upon human beings a burden greater than they
could bear.
It is therefore self-evident that God would not leave
us with no means of
overcoming the difficulties we encounter in the course
of history. It is the
consultative processes of the entire body of believers,
now made globally
accessible by the miracle of the Internet, that can
help us to find our way.

In any case, these texts and these developments help
to explain the problems that
have arisen with the advent of academic Baha'i scholarship
and the rise
of the internet and email.

Individual opinions and non-authoritative individual
interpretation are freely allowed to Baha'is according
to the explicit texts of all the Holy Figures.

Shoghi Effendi wrote in Unfolding Destiny, p.
423: 6 April 1928 [From
the Guardian] "I feel that regarding such interpretations
(of versesfrom the Scriptures) no one has the right to impose
his view or opinionand require his listeners to believe in his particular
interpretation ofthe sacred and prophetic writings. I have no objection
to yourinterpretations and inferences so long as they are
represented as yourown personal observations and reflections. It would
be unnecessary andconfusing to state authoritatively and officially
a dogmatic Baha'iinterpretation to be universally accepted and taught
by believers. Suchmatters I feel should be left to the personal judgement
and insight ofindividual teachers...."

Shoghi Effendi was the divinely appointed and authorized
Interpreter of
Baha'i scriptures. He would have been within his rights
to promulgate a
dogmatic understanding that would be imposed uniformly.
He eschewed
such a dictatorial path, so reminiscent of papacy and
caliphate, and
instead allowed individuals to express their non-authoritative
views
freely. What he disallowed was the demand by any believer
of another
that he or she submit to a particular interpretation.
There is no
evidence of anyone being exempted from this prohibition,
including
auxiliary board members, Counsellors,
or institutions such as Houses
of Justice,
none of which has any
special Interpretive authority.

Part II

Now, after this admittedly lengthy, but I think very
necessary
preparation, let us turn to the letter of 7 April 1999
from our dear,
brothers, the members of the Universal House of Justice.
(Though
to be fair, it should be noted that the letter is most
immediately from
the Department of the Secretariat, and that very frequently
such letters
are generated by one member or a handful of members
of the House within
whose portfolio the subject lies).

THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE BAHA'I WORLD CENTRE

Department of the Secretariat 7 April 1999 To all
National Spiritual Assemblies

Dear Baha'i Friends,

Issues Related to the Study of the Baha'i Faith

In May of 1998, Baha'i Canada reproduced a collection
of letters which the Universal House of Justice had written to various
individuals on the subject of the academic study of the Baha'i Faith.
Copies of this compilation were subsequently mailed by the Canadian
National Spiritual Assembly to its sister Assemblies. The reprint has
now been made generally available in booklet form by the United
States Baha'i Publishing Trust. The House of Justice has asked
us to forward you a copy of the latter publication with the following
comments.

As a number of the friends are aware, a campaign
of internal opposition to the Teachings is currently being carried on through
the use of the Internet, a communications system that now reaches
virtually every part of the world.

I know that our dear Baha'i brothers who are members
of the Universal
House of Justice view certain developments in this ominous
fashion, but
I really believe that this is another instance where
these blessed souls
have been deprived, through no fault of their own, of
the ability to
take a long view of the development of the faith and
to avoid straying
from their only legitimate function, of legislation.
There is no cabal
promoting 'internal opposition' to the Teachings
of the Baha'i faith.
There are some sincere Baha'is whose individual, non-authoritative
interpretation of the Baha'i texts has differed from
that of Doug
Martin, Ian Semple, Farzam Arbab and other members of
the Universal
House of Justice.

For the latter to label this difference of opinion
among devoted believers "internal opposition to the
Teachings" is to
demonstrate an unfortunate inability to grant others
their due and to
recognize their sincerity. It is also to claim official
Interpretive
authority for our brothers on the House of Justice,
since they are
claiming the right to declare interpretations at variance
with their own
"opposed" to the Teachings. Yet, as the extensive quotations
presented
above definitively prove, the House of Justice has no
such authority.
It is only by loving and frank consultation that the
Baha'i community
can help one another to discover
the many and various meanings which
are to be found in the Holy Texts.

Differing from attacks familiar in the past, it seeks
to recast the entire Faith into a socio-political ideology alien
to Baha'u'llah's intent.

Again, our dear brothers are mistakenly claiming the
right to determine
"Baha'u'llah's intent," which is a matter of Interpretation,
not of
legislation. They are speaking beyond their purview.
If they believe
that any Baha'i intellectual has sought to cast the
faith as a
'socio-political ideology,' they have simply misunderstood
that person's
intent, and it is hoped that further consultations will
clarify matters.

In addition, it may be noted that some influential Baha'is have
cast Baha'u'llah's teachings into the form of a dictatorial theocracy that
requires religious institutions to intervene in politics, indeed to take over
the political system altogether. Since non-interference
in politics by religious bodies is the bedrock of Baha'u'llah's teachings, it is
hoped that this current attempt to root out alien political ideologies will extend
to such Khomeinist recastings of the Baha'i faith.

In the place of the institutional authority established
by His
Covenant, it promotes a kind of interpretive authority
which those
behind it attribute to the views of persons technically
trained in
Middle East studies.

I know that the emergence of academic Baha'i studies
among Baha'is in
the West has been very painful for our beloved brothers
on the Universal
House of Justice. Academics such as Denis MacEoin at
Cambridge
pioneered a new way of looking at Babi-Baha'i history
and texts in the
1970s, learning Arabic and Persian, using historical
tools such as
putting things in their context, and trying to seek
the original meaning
of these texts. As a result, he was so cuttingly attacked
by some
conservative Baha'is that he was forced out of the Baha'i
faith. In
biblical studies such an approach is called Higher Criticism,
and it
underpins works such as John Dominic Crossan's books
on the historical
Jesus. Such an approach to religion is normal and taken
for granted
among thinking persons in the modern and postmodern
world. It is,
however, vehemently rejected by religious fundamentalists
and by most
thinkers in the Global South.

I think the problems have arisen, however, because non-academics
do not
understand the nature of academic writing. In the academic
world, no
one accepts an argument from authority. No proposition
is true because
such and such historian asserts it. It is true because
it can be proven
to be true by texts and reasoning. When it cannot in
this way be
upheld, the proposition is revised or rejected. The
process is like
that in science. Thus, academic writing is an on-going
dialogue--fluid,
unstable, not fixed. When an academic such as myself
writes about the
Baha'i faith from an academic point of view, he or she
is in a sense
merely putting forward personal insights based on available
texts and
upon reasoned analysis of them.

This academic writing, being a form of individual, non-authoritative
interpretation subject to public debate and revision,
should not be seen
as forming a threat to, or an alternative to, the authoritative
interpretation of `Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi.
Given that the
Universal House of Justice has
no right to interpret the Bahai writings
with authority, however,
that body may over time find that
academic writing actually is helpful to it, owing to
the rigor of its
methods.

At the very least, such writing poses no
threat to the
integrity of the faith, and was encouraged by all
the Holy Figures. What Mirza Abu'l-Fadl wrote was simply
a 19th century
form of academic Baha'i discourse, and he was praised
for it by
`Abdu'l-Baha. Shoghi Effendi named Fadil Mazandarani
and H.M. Balyuzi
(the latter with formal academic credentials in history
from the London
School of Economics) as Hands of the Cause! Indeed,
it was Shoghi
Effendi who instructed Mr. Balyuzi to write the biography
of
Baha'u'llah, knowing full well his command of academic
methods.
Academic writing should be seen for the tentative, revise-able,
non-authoritative discourse that it is.

Early in 1996, the deliberate nature of the plan
was revealed in an accidental posting to an Internet list which Baha'i
subscribers had believed was dedicated to scholarly exploration of
the Cause.

The Universal House of Justice has been given misinformation
here. This
is a constant problem. Since our dear brothers in Haifa
are so busy
running the entire Baha'i world, they do not have time
individually to
investigate every issue. They depend heavily on reports
from their
counselors and NSA members. Unfortunately, some of
these persons in the
U.S. are personally unreliable. The famous
"majnun" posting to
the first Talisman list does not demonstrate the existence
of any sort
of plot or conspiracy, but rather quite the opposite--it
shows that he
believed that it was inappropriate to "organize" and
that rather the
effects of email consultation would be salutary for
the faith in
themselves. For what it is worth, I also condemned
the hotheaded
suggestions of a majnun subscriber, which were in any
case not very
serious. (See my commentary on the majnun posting.

Some of the people responsible resigned from the
Faith when Counsellors pointed out to them the direction their activities
were taking. A small number of others continue to promote the campaign
within the Baha'i community.

Well, I am afraid that there was only one person responsible
for the
majnun posting, or maybe two if you counted the poster
to whom it came
as a response. I wasn't responsible for either one,
and several others whom the
Counselors bothered were also entirely innocent in this
regard. As I
have pointed out, the majnun posting itself is not something
that would
be considered "criminal" in any civilized system. Moreover,
I can
attest as an eye-witness that if the House of Justice
merely desired
that the Counselors consult with me about the "direction"
my
"activities" were taking, then Counselor Stephen Birkland
grossly
exceeded his instructions, since in fact he threatened
me and others
with being declared covenant breakers and sentenced
to the "social
death" of shunning merely for our talisman email postings!

In the past, in situations of a somewhat similar
nature, the patience and compassion shown by 'Abdu'l-Baha and the Guardian
helped various believers who had been misled by ill-intentioned
persons to eventually free themselves from such entanglements.

There have not been any similar situations in the past,
because neither
`Abdu'l-Baha nor Shoghi Effendi bothered Baha'i scholars
such as Mirza
Abu'l-Fadl or George Townshend or Hasan Balyuzi, but
rather encouraged
them. While the Talisman academics do not have the
stature of any of these
thinkers , they were continuing,
and saw themselves as continuing, the
intellectual tasks begun by those giants.

In this same spirit of forbearance the Universal
House of Justice has intervened in the current situation only to the extent
that has been unavoidable, trusting to the good sense and the goodwill
of the believers involved to awaken to the spiritual dangers
to which they are exposing themselves. Nevertheless, certain Counsellors
and National Spiritual Assemblies are monitoring the problem closely,
and the friends can be confident that whatever further steps
are needed to protect the integrity of the Cause will be taken.

I think the Universal House of Justice has in fact been
relatively
measured in its further communications after Mr. Birkland's
disastrous
handling of the situation in 1996. Given my own anger
and sometimes
immoderate email messages about the entire situation,
this seems
admirable. I should take the
opportunity now to apologize for those of
my statements, spoken in anger
and frustration in May 1996 through February
of 1999, that may have been found
offensive by the friends.

We should not forget, however, that the House of Justice
authorized threats against prominent Baha'i academics
by Mr. Birkland in
1996; that it had the International Teaching Centre
threaten other email
posters in 1997, and expelled Michael McKenny from the
Baha'i faith that
year. The House of Justice has encouraged what can
only be
characterized as dishonest behavior among some rightwing
Baha'i
intellectuals, as it admits when it says it has put
the counsellors and
NSAs up to spying on the Baha'is, which I regret not
only because
dishonesty and snooping are unethical, but because I
think this behavior
betrays a lack of trust in the very good will and good
judgment they say
they believe in. This April 7 letter seems to me a further
unfortunate
and unnecessary departure from
that moderation.

As passages in the enclosed reprint make clear, this
campaign of internal opposition -- while purporting to accept
the legitimacy of the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice as
twin successors of Baha'u'llah and the Centre of His Covenant -- attempts
to cast doubt on the nature and scope of the authority conferred on
them in the Writings.

I think the real problem is that some Baha'is, especially
the powerful
ones, have a somewhat naive and absolutist approach
to the Baha'i
institutions and are reluctant to admit of any limitations
on them, even
those delineated by the Holy Figures themselves! However,
Shoghi
Effendi warned against such "extreme orthodoxy" (Baha'i
Administration
p. 42). Again, it is clear from
the writings of the Guardian himself that
the House of Justice may not
stray into matters of Interpretation, which
are not its purview.

When other Baha'is have pointed out that such arguments
contradict explicit statements of the Master, persons behind
the scheme have responded by calling into question the soundness
of 'Abdu'l-Baha's own judgement and perspective.

There is not and never has been any concerted "scheme"
on the part of
Western Baha'i intellectuals to undermine the Baha'i
faith. Most of the
people the counsellors targeted didn't even get along
in the 1980s! To
now amalgamate Professor Linda Walbridge (a Baha'i for
25 years, a
pioneer to difficult posts in Lebanon and Jordan who
was forced out of
the faith for her stand for women's rights) and Steve
Scholl (similarly
an old-time Baha'i, former editor of Dialogue magazine
similarly
threatened, bullied and forced out) is to ignore the
major tiff between
the two acted out in Dialogue magazine itself!
I would be interested in seeing the particular quote
calling into
question `Abdu'l-Baha's judgment and perspective. I
don't personally
remember anything like that, and I saw it all. The
big to-do on
Talisman I was over `Abdu'l-Baha's mistaken statement,
gleaned from
medieval Muslim historiography, that Socrates met the
Israeli prophets
in the holy land, which is certainly untrue (which prophets
were in the
Holy Land during Socrates' life anyway, and why do the
ancient Greek
authorities deny he ever traveled abroad?) In any case,
`Abdu'l-Baha
himself denied to his companions that he claimed to
be infallible
("da`vat-i ma`sumiyyat namikunam"), which was
one of the charges
levelled against him by the Muhammad-`Ali covenant breakers.
Surely the
House of Justice does not desire to confirm the covenant
breakers'
charges about the Baha'is by falling into the sort of
idolatry where
`Abdu'l-Baha's judgment can never be questioned?

Gradually, these arguments have exposed the view
of those involved that Baha'u'llah Himself was not the voice of God to our
age but merely a particularly enlightened moral philosopher, one whose
primary concern was to reform existing society.

I am unaware that any of the Bahais on talisman@indiana.edu
expressed such
a view of Bahaullahs station, including myself.
May we have at least a quote, please? Much of Talisman
I is up on the
World Wide Web, so it is easy enough to quote. This
assertion sets up a non-existent straw man that is
easy to knock down. When Birkland barged into my living
room
and interrogated me on behalf of the House of Justice,
one of the things
he said was, 'How can you say you are a Baha'i when
you talk about
Baha'u'llah as though he were a historical person?'
This was one of the
heresy charges against me and others, and it is probably
what lies
behind this mysterious passage. It is also possible
that a reference is being
made to views I expressed during my departure from the
faith, May 1996-Feb. 1999,
during which I was experimenting with theologies and
attempting to understand
what had gone wrong. However, it is simply not the
case that my views when I did
not consider myself a Bahai were identical to the views
I held and hold as a Bahai.
It is a hard thing for counselors to ambush Bahai intellectuals,
push them out of the
faith, and then declare that they never had been Bahais
in the first place.

I think the real problem has to do in part with the
differences in discourse
about religion between most Iranians and most educated
Westerners.
Iranians often show their piety by a kind of exaltation
of holy
personages that most Westerners would feel excessive
and even paralyzing
or idolatrous. We can't have a world religion if the
Bahai institutions are not
going to make a place for the Denis MacEoins and Juan
Coles and Linda
Walbridges whose discourse they find distasteful because
they are Western
academics. All I can say is that a majority of American
Christians
certainly believes that Jesus was a historical person,
and only
fundamentalists would deny that they are Christians.
That I speak about
Baha'u'llah as a historical person does not mean I reduce
him to a
philosopher. I happen to have written a long essay
on the "Concept of
Manifestation in the Baha'i Writings." I know what
a Manifestation of
God is, and I now believe Baha'u'llah was one.

There are two wider points I have to reemphasize here.
The first is that
Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha both fully recognized the
humanity and
historicity of the Manifestations of God.

Explaining the meaning of "clouds" in past scriptures
in His Book of
Certitude, pp. 71-72, Baha'u'llah freely admits to the
mortality of the
Manifestations: "In another sense, they mean the
appearance of that immortal Beauty in the image of mortal man, with
such human limitations as eating and drinking, poverty and riches, glory
and abasement, sleeping and waking, and such other things as cast
doubt in the minds of men, and cause them to turn away. All such veils
are symbolically referred to as 'clouds.'" Although Baha'u'llah
recognizes that
discourse acknowledging the historical limitations on
the Manifestations
can form a stumbling block to some, He clearly cannot
have desired to have the
fact of it covered up, since He Himself proclaimed it
here!

The second is that it is simply is not the place of
the Universal House
of Justice to inquire into my personal beliefs or those
of anyone else,
expressed in email messages, about Baha'i theology and
the station of
Baha'u'llah. This area of conscience is not a matter
of legislation, and `Abdu'l-Baha
explicitly forbade them from interfering in it. While
they are welcome to their own
theological opinions, and are welcome even to lobby
for those, using
their vast prestige within the community, they do not
have the right to
Interpret authoritatively. The Baha'i faith was not
designed by
Baha'u'llah to be a religion of orthodoxy, but rather,
like Islam, a
religion of orthopraxy, of right practice of law and
ritual.

The House of Justice must be
obeyed. If the House of Justice made a law,
like the Caribbean dictator in Woody
Allen's film *Bananas*, that we must all change our
underwear every day,
and that we must all wear it on the outside so it can
be checked, then
my understanding of the Covenant is that we should have
to do so. The
House of Justice may enact laws and punish behavior.
But they may not
promulgate dogmas and punish individuals for their conscientious
expressions of belief. It is simply not the case that
such speech is a
form of behavior, and making it a crime is to create
thought-crimes, as
in totalitarian states. Where they criminalize mere
individual opinion,
the House of Justice breaks the Covenant `Abdu'l-Baha
established with
the intellectuals of the West in His own day, with Hyppolite
Dreyfus and
Auguste Forel and others, which pledged that the Baha'i
faith would not
be a persecuting, anti-intellectual religion like so
many of the others.

Part III

The House of Justice wrote:

By itself, such opposition would likely stand little
chance ofinfluencing reasonably informed Baha'is. As one of
the letters in theenclosed reprint (20 July 1997) points out, the scheme
relies for effect,therefore, on exploiting the confusion created in
modern thought by thereigning doctrines of materialism.

Cole replies:

Again, the word "scheme" here is troubling insofar
as it indicates a
preconceived and deliberately plotted attempt to do
something dishonest.
Its mere use puts the intellectuals on the defensive
and makes them have to
deny it. It is too ridiculous to deny.

I became a Baha'i in 1972 while an
undergraduate at Northwestern University, and was already
committed to the
academic life at that time. I was, of course, somewhat
nervous about
whether it was good to join an organized religion, given
the miserable
experience thinking people have had with them. But I
was constantly
reassured, by the Baha'i scriptures themselves, by `Abdu'l-Baha's
talks
(which are now increasingly being tossed out of the
Canon by the
fundamentalists) and letters, by members of my local
community, by members
of the National Spiritual Assembly like Firuz Kazemzadeh
and Dan Jordan,
and ultimately in correspondence by the Universal House
of Justice itself
that there was no contradiction between the life of
the intellect and
spiritual life in the Baha'i faith!

The Universal House of Justice even once wrote me that
they preferred to
maintain literature Review because they found the Roman
Catholic system of
maintaining an index of forbidden books distasteful!
(And now they are
assiduously developing an index of forbidden books that
cannot be carried
by Baha'i publishing trusts.)

For them now to characterize all academic writing about
religion as in its
essence "materialist" is for them to renege on all those
promises that were
made me and others all along the line. They are also
contradicting Shoghi
Effendi's clear advice that Baha'is major in subjects
like Comparative
Religions and History at university!
I think they have a right to their point of view on
this matter. I simply
insist on my right (and the right of others) to differ
with them here. The
Baha'i faith, if it is to be truly all-embracing, has
to have place in it
for Western intellectuals committed to human rights
and freedom of thought.
`Abdu'l-Baha promised us there would be a place for
us at His table, and
now we are being expelled from His House by bouncers
in business suits, and
told to hit the road. This would not be so bad--religions
after all change
over time--except that the Universal House of Justice
simply has no
standing to pronounce on Interpretive matters like *academic
methodology.*
Methodology is in any case a complex issue that takes
years of high-powered
graduate study to master, something none of the present
members has done
with regard to the humanities or social sciences. But
*it is not even their
sphere of authority*! By criminalizing the work of all
the Baha'i academics
in university Religion and History departments in the
West, they are making
themselves, and the Faith, look ridiculous. And they
are unwittingly
breaking the promise
`Abdu'l-Baha made with thinking people, assuring
us
that this sort of thing would not happen in this dispensation.

Although the reality of God's continuous relationship
with His creation
and His intervention in human life and history are the
very essence of
the teachings of the Founders of the revealed religions,
dogmatic
materialism today insists that even the nature of religion
itself can be
adequately understood only through the use of an academic
methodology
designed to ignore the truths that make religion what
it is.

I once heard Hand of the Cause John Robarts give a
talk. Robarts had been
an insurance salesman, and had something of the tent
preacher about him.
His stories were about how the uncertain and discouraged
young insurance
salesman finally got committed to his job and went out
and sold a million
dollars worth of insurance. Or about how a crucial sale
was about to be
lost because he seemed to have missed his plane, but
when he prayed
mightily, it turned out that another plane was available.
Why was this?
Because, of course, God is ever-present, and if you
ask him with sufficient
fervor, and He is so inclined, he will conjure up an
airplane for you.
Frankly, I was appalled at this superstitious mindset,
which is the same
one displayed in this letter.

Of course, the Abrahamic scriptures,
including the Baha'i ones, do have a
discourse of divine intervention
in human affairs. But so many things are
acknowledged as symbolic in the
Baha'i scriptures--Satan, prophecies, angels,
jinn, even our images of God.
How could it be proved that divine intervention
is not a trope intended to produce
certain spiritual effects, such as spiritual
reassurance?

You can call me a dogmatic materialist all you like,
but I guarantee you
that an insurance salesman's prayers have no effect
whatsoever on the
airline industry's schedules. God doesn't work by breaking
the physical
laws that He himself decreed! Whatever happened to the
unity of science and
religion, which was supposed to be such a key Baha'i
principle? What
*scientist* believes the world is so topsy-turvy that
airplanes are being
conjured in and out of existence by the prayers of insurance
salesmen?

The phrase "dogmatic materialism" is intended to mislead
and draw
attention away from the real dogmatism here, which is
the dogmatism of a
theological fundamentalism. We have to inhabit a magical
world of faeries,
angel feathers, and acabacadabra airplanes or we can't
be good Baha'is. I
think it is rather sad that relatively educated persons
such as our dear
brothers on the Universal House of Justice are, as late
as the eve of the
21st century, and in complete contradiction to basic
Baha'i principle,
imprisoned in such superstitions. But they are welcome
to have any theology
they like. They are not welcome to try to impose their
theology on
innocent, thinking Baha'is. They are not a theological
institution. They
have no authority to Interpret Baha'i scripture. Their
sacred duty is to legislate for the betterment of humankind,
not to write theology.

Finally, I am afraid that none of the members of the
Universal House of
Justice has the slightest idea of the methodological
underpinnings of
current academic methodology in the humanities and human
sciences in
Western universities. These underpinnings are very seldom
properly
characterized as "materialist," and a colleague who
gave a paper in my
department based on a vulgar materialism of the sort
in vogue 30 years ago
among Althusserians would be laughed out of the building.
They are, in
short, simply poorly informed, as well as trespassing
into areas over which
they have been given no authority whatsoever by Baha'i
texts. It is painful
for me to see such honored persons, the trustees of
such an exalted
Institution, humiliate themselves with this outburst
of vehement ignorance.
But we must be reminded that they are doing the best
they can, in the absence
of a living Guardian, and must forgive them their sortie
into Monty Python-like caricature.

In general, the strategy being pursued has been
to avoid direct attackson the Faith's Central Figures.

Well, I haven't attacked any of the Faith's Central
Figures because I
admire and believe in them all, though I admire Baha'u'llah
most of all. I
am afraid He doesn't get much attention in the current
Baha'i Faith. I on
the other hand am the only living Baha'i who so much
as bothered to write an academic
book wholly about him, to spend years reading thousands
of pages of his
works. There isn't any strategy at work here. I criticize
God all the time
for the Holocaust. If I were annoyed at the Holy Figures
I wouldn't
hesitate to say so.

The effort, rather, has been to sow the seeds of
doubt among believersabout the Faith's teachings and institutions by appealing
to unexaminedprejudices that Baha'is may have unconsciously absorbed
from non-Baha'isociety.

Actually, I think Baha'i conservatives and fundamentalists,
who want to
abrogate the unity of science and religion, are the
ones who have imbibed
prejudices from their Shi`ite and Christian fundamentalist
backgrounds.

In defiance of the clear interpretation of 'Abdu'l-Baha
and theGuardian, for example, Baha'u'llah's limiting of
membership on theUniversal House of Justice to men is misrepresented
as merely a"temporary measure" subject to eventual revision
if sufficient pressureis brought to bear.

Baha'u'llah never limited membership of the Universal
House of Justice to
men, and I would very much like to see such a quote.
He calls members of
*all* houses of justice, local and universal, "rijal,"
which could mean
"men" but could also simply mean "notables." Despite
his clear reference to
rijal-i buyut-i `adliyyih (men of the houses of justice),
by which he
*must* have meant local houses of justice because of
the plural,
`Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi both let women onto
local houses of
justice. This matter is unclear, and the Universal House
of Justice may
eventually decide that women can in fact serve on that
body. The present,
eighth House of Justice do not like this possibility,
but they cannot
forestall the legislative decisions of its successors,
as we have seen from
explicit holy texts.

Similarly, Shoghi Effendi's explanation of Baha'u'llah's
vision of thefuture Baha'i World Commonwealth that will unite
spiritual and civilauthority is dismissed in favour of the assertion
that the modernpolitical concept of "separation of church and state"
is somehow one thatBaha'u'llah intended as a basic principle of the
World Order He has founded.

In Persian, Shoghi Effendi called the Commonwealth
"spiritual." He
explicitly said that Baha'i institutions are not to
allow their bodies to
supersede the machinery of the civil state. Baha'u'llah
and `Abdu'l-Baha
wrote extensively about the need for religious leaders
to avoid intervening
in the affairs of the civil state. A small group of
Baha'i theocrats,
including Horace Holley, Mason Remey, and David Hoffman,
attempted for
decades to reverse this central Baha'i teaching. Hoffman
met opposition to
this idea from Hugh Chance, David Ruhe and Charles Wolcott.
Now the theocrats
on the Universal House of Justice, whose vision of society
differs very little
from that of Ayatollah Khomeini if you substitute the
Baha'i institutions
for the Shi`ite clergy, wish not only to reverse the
Baha'i scriptures but
to make their somewhat odd views an unchallengeable
Baha'i dogma to which
all Baha'is must assent.

Moreover, why is it that they use "modern" as an insult?
The Baha'i faith
arose in the modern era (`asr-i jadid). Previous
Baha'i leaders and
thinkers were proud of this fact. That the separation
of religion and state
is "modern" does not make it bad. It is an 18th century
idea that
Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha took up to fight the influence
of the clergy
of their day and to ensure that their own religion did
not ever descend
into the medieval quagmire of theocracy and Inquisition.
In any case, this
is a matter of Intepretation, and the House of Justice
has no standing to promulgate a
dogma about the issue, more especially one that contradicts
key writings of
Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha! See in particular `Abdu'l-Baha's
*Treatise on
Leadership*, http://h-net2.msu.edu/~bahai/trans/vol2/absiyasi.htm

Particularly subtle is an attempt to suggest that the
Mashriqu'l-Adhkar
should evolve into a seat of quasi-doctrinal authority,
parallel to and
essentially independent of the Local House of Justice,
which would permit
various interests to insinuate themselves into the direction
of the life
processes of the Cause.

Baha'u'llah urged that a Mashriqu'l-Adhkhar be built
in every town and
city. `Abdu'l-Baha was extremely eloquent and urgent
about the need for the
Baha'is to build houses of worship in every locality.
Shoghi Effendi
admitted that the faith could not be whole until the
Mashriq and its
dependencies were widely established and fully functioning.
The Universal
House of Justice has intervened to contradict these
pronouncements of
Baha'u'llah and `Abdu'l-Baha, and actually to prevent
Baha'is who wish to
build local houses of worship! Yet Baha'u'llah was quite
clear that the
Universal House of Justice is *not* to interfere in
matters of worship
(`ibadat) or the commandments in revealed texts.

Typically, when misrepresentations of the kind described
are challenged,the reaction of those behind the campaign has been
to claim that theircivil rights are being threatened, an assertion that
is of coursemeaningless in the light of the purely voluntary
nature of Baha'imembership.

Nobody minds his or her interpretation of the Baha'i
texts being
"challenged," since all we have are our individual and
non-authoritative
opinions, after all. But "challenge" is being used as
a euphemism here.
Sincere Baha'is who have never broken a Baha'i law and
who have dedicated
their lives to serving the Faith are being threatened
by persons (many of
whom don't know much about the Baha'i scriptures and
have lived all their
lives in comfortable suburbs) with being *shunned*,
which is in Baha'i
terms a form of "social death." And why have they been
so threatened?
Because they have speculated that women might serve
on the Universal House
of Justice, because they have suggested that the Baha'i
institutions may
not in fact be Khomeinist in nature, because they yearn
to see local houses
of worship built? These are their capital crimes. How
ridiculous. How
absurd. How pitiful. To build an Inquisition on such
trifles.

As for the truly horrifying idea that Baha'is have
*no* human rights in
their own religion, Baha'u'llah suffered from lack of
due process at the hands of the Ottoman state (headed
by the Muslim Caliph,
the equivalent of the Universal House of Justice, divinely
sanctioned and
unchallengeable in his society). He openly condemned
this lack of justice.
`Abdu'l-Baha spoke of the need for rights and due process.
Human rights are
at the core of the Baha'i scriptures! And yet now we
hear that Baha'is have
no human rights. They have no freedom to declare their
views or express
their conscience. They may, like Michael McKenny, be
tossed about
spiritually like so many sacks of potatoes by our brothers
in Haifa.

As for the idea that the reason Baha'is have no human
rights with regard
to their own administrative institutions is that the
Baha'i faith is a
voluntary organization, this conclusion is simply illogical.
We could by
the same token say that residence in a particular country
is voluntary. So,
Iranian Baha'is cannot be seen to have their human rights
abused by the
ayatollahs, because after all they can simply move to
Pakistan or Turkey.
They are not required to remain in Iran. Under this
logic there can be *no*
human rights abuses anywhere by anyone. All victims
of human rights abuse
have the choice of leaving their situation.

But let me just assure you that my belief in Baha'u'llah
is not
"voluntary" in the way my membership in the local public
library is. It is
wrought up with the core of my being, and I could not
abandon it without
feeling warped and inauthentic (I know: I tried, for
what I thought was the
good of the Faith). I think this is even more true for
those born into the
religion. To say that I may have my human rights abused
by the Baha'i
authorities, and be subjected to threats, censorship,
and even social
death, because I could theoretically renounce the faith
that is at the core
of my being, is to abandon all Baha'i principle and
to descend into a
medieval sort of Inquisition. I cannot tell you how
I weep at the idea of
our beloved Baha'i faith, the shining hope of a new
Age, being so warped as
to come to mirror the Spanish Inquisition, with psychological
and cult-like
techniques of intimidation substituted for the rack.

Much emphasis is placed by them also on academic
freedom, their view ofwhich proves, on examination, to be merely freedom
on their part topervert scholarly discourse to the promotion of their
own ideologicalagenda, while seeking to exclude from discussion
features of the Baha'iFaith that are central to the Writings of its Founders.

Academic freedom is the freedom to explore, to seek
the truth no matter
where it leads, the freedom
even to make mistakes. You can't decide beforehand
what is
a perversion and what is a breakthrough. As for an ideological
agenda, the
8th House of Justice not only has a rather elaborated
one, but it is one
that flies in the face of basic Baha'i scripture and
principle. The real
reason they are so afraid of academia is that by its
rigor and method of
checking sources and viewing them in context, it inevitably
challenges the
Khomeinization of the Baha'i faith in which they are
engaged.

But we need not worry. There are thousands of universities
in the world.
My own university has a population equal to half the
entire US Baha'i community.
A little liberal arts college with 2,000 students has
a population
equivalent to the Baha'i community of France or Germany.
The Baha'i
administration is a big frog in a very small
pond. It cannot in fact
suppress intellectual life. It has picked a fight with
thinking people the
world over, and it is not a fight that any religious
organization has won
in the long run. The Vatican finally gave up the fight
with Vatican II in
1965 and has finally apologized to Galileo. Future Houses
of Justice will
apologize for the Great Purge of 1996.

The effect of continued exposure to such insincerity
about matters vitalto humanity's well-being is spiritually corrosive.
When we encounter mindsthat are closed and hearts that are darkened by evident
malice,Baha'u'llah urges that we leave such persons to God
and turn our attentionto the opportunities which multiply daily for the
promotion of the truthswhich He teaches.

Actually, I don't think Baha'u'llah says any such thing.
I recall him
saying that at Ridvan all creation was made ritually
pure, and calling upon
us to associate with fragrance and fellowship with all
human beings.
All the Bahai intellectuals that I know are obedient to
this command and long for fellowship
and harmony with the Universal House of Justice and
with the other institutions of the Bahai Faith. We
send our love out to them as individuals. But as
for those administrators
who are filled with malice, who take the goal of unity
as an excuse to attempt to impose
uniformity, who misunderstand constitutional authority
as warrant for arbitrary and
dictatorial behavior, we have a responsibility to speak
out against the harm they may inflict, with their methods
of backroom intimidation and manipulation, upon individual
adherents. We have to be vigilant against their electioneering,
their
forcing out of the faith anyone who is vocal and open-minded,
their
anti-intellectual prejudices. And, who knows? Eventually
they may
themselves see how contrary to the spirit of the Faith
their actions and
words are, and may develop that sense of shame that
Baha'u'llah says only a
few of us are born with. That cannot be our concern.

As Baha'is, our central task is clear: to build up
an ever-advancing
*civilization* (which Shoghi Effendi indicates would
have academic studies
of religion as one of its components), to serve humankind,
to work for an
inclusive global community that has a place for conservatives
and liberals,
fundamentalists and academics, black and white, male
and female, urbanite
and tribesman. I say this despite the fact that the
current leaders of the
Baha'i World Faith are attempting to exclude a very
large and significant
proportion of humanity from the faith (including me!),
in order to pursue
an extremely narrow and partisan vision of it.

The one thing they have gotten right is that the give
and take between the
fundamentalist leadership and the Baha'i intellectuals
has already had, and
increasingly will have, a galvanizing and salutary effect
on the community,
and from this dialectic both sides will ultimately move
closer toward the
real Baha'i faith, which we children of the twilight
can only dimly imagine.

I wish our dear brothers on the Universal House of
Justice well, and pray
for them that they will find Baha'u'llah in their hearts,
and will find a
way to forsake the persecutorial and somewhat paranoid
view they have of
any Baha'i who does not see things the way they do.
I pray most of all that
they abandon their forays into theology and inquisitions,
and return to
their proper function of legislation and advancing the
interests of
humankind.